


Some Call Him the Gangster of Love, Some Call Him Ryuu

by maychorian



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, tiny touch of angst for flavor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 10:31:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2465024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maychorian/pseuds/maychorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets written for tumblr prompts. Tanaka and Noya search for hype songs, Tanaka and Yamamoto hang out in Tokyo, Tanaka siblings have a driving lesson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Call Him the Gangster of Love, Some Call Him Ryuu

**Author's Note:**

> Come prompt me any time at [my tumblr](http://maychorian.tumblr.com/ask). I'll write anyone in Haikyuu, but Tanaka gets favoritism. If you give me a shippy prompt, though, I'll twist into gen--I'm very talented that way. (Like the time I wrote a gen fic about Sam Winchester and Castiel kissing under mistletoe.)

**[sp00kyasahi](http://sp00kyasahi.tumblr.com/) said: I'm not sure how much of a prompt this is or how useful this would be but my sister and I like to laugh about Tanaka listening to Beyonce before games to pump himself up and then Noya finds out and starts listening to Beyonce before games too and it gets to the point where the entire team gets involved and cant play without listening to like Countdown or something like that**

Okay, this is super cute actually but I don’t actually listen to Beyonce! Or very much pop music at all except when forced to by circumstances or when Postmodern Jukebox reinterprets it into a style I like! I’m sorry! ::covers face with hands::

So here is some Tanaka being dumb for no reason.

* * *

 

"Noya, Noya, I found it!"

Nishinoya looked up as Ryuu hurled himself through the gym door, holding up an MP3 player like an Olympic torch. Noya started bouncing in place in anticipation. “What is it? What did you find? Tell me, tell me!”

"I found the perfect song to get us hyped up! Listen, listen!" Ryuu fumbled in his pockets for some earbuds, his hands shaking as he plugged in the jack and handed Noya a bud. Nishinoya plunged the earbud into his ear as Ryuu mashed his fingers into the controls, holding the MP3 player low on his chest so that there would be plenty of slack in the line between it and Noya’s ear. He put the other earbud in his own ear so he could listen along.

"Oh, it’s taking a second to load, but this is gonna be so great, Noya-san, you’re gonna love it!"

Noya bounced on his toes, doing his best not to fidget away and break the connection. What would it be? Western pop? Rap? Metal? Electronica? Ryuu basically liked everything that was loud, so there was no knowing what kind of song he’d queued up.

They’d been searching for the perfect hype song for weeks, now. Weeks. They’d tried all kinds of genres, bands from Japan, Korea, Europe, the US. Language didn’t matter. Only the sound. Only the excitement. Only the hype. If Ryuu had actually managed to find the perfect song after all this time, Noya would have to restrain himself not to leap up and kiss him on the cheek.

"Oh, it’s coming! Here it comes!" Ryuu hit the volume button with his thumb, cranking it up.

It started at last, a blast of sound ringing in Noya’s ear, his brain, echoing around his lobes and scrubbing everything else away. A powerful vocal, a wave of music already in crescendo, mighty and emotional and endless. He was aware of nothing but the voice, the instruments behind it were nothing, only the voice.

"AND IIIIIIIIIIII WILL ALWAAYS LOVE YOOOOUUUUUUU…"

Noya ripped the earbud from his head and chased Ryuu around the gym for a solid ten minutes, scolding him all the way, while Ryuu roared with laughter and somehow managed to stay one step ahead. The entire time, he still held the player above his head like a torch, the earbud still in his ear.

"So hype, Noya-san!" he was heard to squeal right before Noya took him down with a final, crushing blow to the back of the knees. "So hype!"

 

* * *

  **[the-third-way](http://the-third-way.tumblr.com/) said: Tanaka and Yamamoto chilling together in Tokyo, finding they have something else in common apart from volleyball and a crush on Shimizu.**

This got longer than I expected. It was super fun, though.

* * *

 

Tanaka and Yamamoto had gotten separated from the group. Usually this would be a problem, but they were manly men and they were not afraid. Plus, Yamamoto was totally a Tokyo native, so he could figure where they were going and how to get back to where they supposed to be. Right? Right.

This was Tanaka’s assumption. The assumption held right up until Yamamoto stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, pulled out his cellphone, and made a call. When the other side picked up, he said in a small voice, “Yaku? I’m lost.”

Tanaka groaned and flopped down on a nearby bench. “Tora! I thought you said you could handle this!”

Yamamoto frowned and put his hand over the cellphone’s microphone. “I thought I could. But I’ve never been here and neither of our phones have GPS. So…Yaku.”

The voice on the other side came back, and he turned away. “Yes, I’m here!”

Tanaka groaned and leaned his head back, staring up at the steel-gray sky between the towering city buildings. They were going to miss seeing Tokyo Tower with their teams! This was a disaster.

Ah, but at least he had one buddy with him. That wasn’t so bad. Tanaka sat straight in time to see Yamamoto finish up his conversation and close his phone. He turned to face him with a grin and a thumbs up. “Yaku’s gonna come get us! He says he doesn’t trust me to remember directions, so we’re just supposed to stay put and wait.”

Tanaka grinned back. “Sounds like Suga-san.”

Yamamoto sat next to Tanaka on the bench, looking around at the spot they’d found themselves. “It’s gonna be half an hour or so, so we have some time to kill.” He pointed across the street at an arcade. “Wanna play some games?”

Tanaka considered it briefly, then made a non-committal noise.

"Or there’s karaoke right down there." Yamamoto pointed again.

Tanaka made another noise.

"Photo booth?" Tanaka shook his head. "Noodle cart?"

Tanaka sighed and hung his head, his elbows on his knees and his shoulders slumped. “Ugh, why is everything in Tokyo so expensive? The truth is that I don’t have any money. My pockets are bare. My wallet is empty. I don’t even have the yen for a bus pass, so it’s a good thing we’ve only been walking.”

Yamamoto turned to face him, eyebrows rising. “Oh, you too? I thought you country bumpkins would bring some cash for sightseeing.”

"What, you mean you have no money, either?" Tanaka half-rose in indignation. "You were planning to leech off my kindness, city boy?"

"Well, yes, of course." Yamamoto tilted his head back slightly to look at him. "I would have returned the favor eventually! Besides, it’s not my fault that I have no money."

Tanaka sat back down, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Not your fault, eh? What did you spend it on?”

Yamamoto sighed and stared forward, his cheeks reddening. After a moment, he mumbled something.

Tanaka leaned closer, cupping a hand around his ear. “What’s that? I didn’t quite catch it.”

Yamamoto glanced sideways at him, then grunted in exasperation and folded his arms across his chest. “I spent it on ice cream for my kouhai, all right? It’s not my fault! They’re just all too cute, you don’t understand!”

Tanaka froze for a second, then doubled over laughing, his arms wrapped tightly around his body. He got it under control after a few moments, thanks somewhat to Yamamoto poking his shoulder and nudging him with his knee. “Stop that, Ryuu, stop it, you’re making a scene. People are staring. Ryuu!”

"Ah, fine, fine, I got it!"

Tanaka straightened at last, chuckles gradually dying away. He wiped a finger under his eye to get rid of the tears. When he stole a glance at Yamamoto’s face, though, he almost broke out in laughter again. The guy was staring at him with the most sour grimace Tanaka had ever seen on him.

"I wouldn’t have told you if I’d known you were going to make fun of me."

Tanaka sobered a bit at that. He unwrapped his arms from his torso and clapped Yamamoto manfully on the shoulder. “I wasn’t making fun. I was just laughing because…well, because it was funny.”

Yamamoto was still glaring at him.

Tanaka’s body jerked with one more hiccup of laughter, and he wiped away another tear. “Because, see, I spent my money on meat buns. For my kouhai. They’re all very cute, too. Though I don’t think that bastard Tsukishima was very grateful. He still ate one, though.”

"Oh." Yamamoto blinked at him for a moment, then faced forward again, a true smile coming out, dawning like a yellow sun in a steel-gray sky. "I see."

They didn’t need to spend any money, after all. They spent the whole time waiting for Yaku talking about their kouhai and arguing about whose were the cutest.

 

* * *

  **[officialguardiandeity](http://officialguardiandeity.tumblr.com/) said: youre still taking prompts for writing? how about saeko teaching ryuunosuke how to drive omg**

This can be considered to be in the same universe as [the-third-way](http://tmblr.co/mqz5eIuTwQkohBp-c38DJsw)'s excellent fic, ["Delinquent Marshmallows."](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2135658) Since I read it, that’s been my personal backstory for the Tanaka siblings, with dead and/or deadbeat parents, mainly taking care of each other, with all of the strife and closeness that that implies. I see it really working for those two, and that’s where this story came from.

* * *

 

"Yo, Ryuu." Saeko leaned in the doorway of her brother’s room, twirling the keys to the van on her index finger. "You ready for that driving lesson?"

Ryuu looked up from where he lay sprawled out face up on his bed, reading a magazine. “I’m kinda busy here.”

Saeko scoffed. “You are not.” She dared to take a few steps inside the room, kicking the clothes on the floor out of her way, and stood over him with her arms crossed across her chest. “You’re reading a volleyball magazine. One you’ve probably read several times before.”

He peeked around the magazine to look at her with one eye. He did not deny it. “It’s important.” 

"That’s a very strange way to say ‘I’m lazy.’ Fortunately I am very intelligent and I can translate the idiot brother dialect into regular Japanese." She rested the hand holding the keys on her hip and snatched away the magazine with her other hand, holding it out of reach when Ryuu protested and stretched for it. "C’mon, little bro. I’m busy tomorrow and you have a match the day after that. This is the last chance we’re gonna have for a while. Let’s go."

Ryuu, still lying on his back, crossed his arms over his chest and scowled up at her. “Give me back my magazine.”

Saeko laughed incredulously. “What is this? The last time we’d planned to go driving you said you had made last-minute plans with Noya. The time before that you just weren’t in the house and I couldn’t find you anywhere. What’s going on, idiot Ryuu? It’s like you don’t even want to learn to drive. What, do you want me to keep picking you up and dropping you off forever?”

He just stared back at her defiantly through the entirety of the speech, but at the last question his eyes cut away and color rose to his cheeks. Saeko gasped and backed up a step. “Wait, what?”

He refused to look at her. Saeko considered the situation, then set the magazine aside and sat on the edge of the bed, turned sideways to face him, her hip bumping his side. “Hey,” she tried again, much more gently than before. The two them didn’t really do “gentle,” so it felt a little odd, but something was going on that she needed to understand.

"Hey, Ryuu." She poked his bicep when he didn’t respond instantly. "Tell me what you’re thinking."

He didn’t speak for a long moment. Saeko did her best not to fidget. “I just…” he started finally, face turning even redder. He covered his face with his hands. “Ugh, this is embarrassing. Don’t look at me.”

Saeko raised her eyebrows, but sat straight and looked at the wall. She sensed more than saw him peek at her through his fingers. Then he slowly started talking again.

"Yes, all right? Yes, I want you to keep picking me up and dropping me off. I guess I didn’t realize why I’ve been avoiding lessons this whole time, but when you said it out loud I figured it out. Yeah, I like it when we ride together in the van. We’re both really busy and sometimes when we’re home we just yell at each other about all the chores that need done and who forgot to lock up and what to do for dinner. But in the van we just talk and laugh and listen to music, and I like that, okay. I like it. That’s why. I’m sorry for being a pain."

This was simultaneously so sweet and so stupid that Saeko had to groan and hide her face in her hands. “Damn it, Ryuu. You adorable moron.”

A slow rustling noise told her that he had probably lowered his hands to look at her. 

"Just because you learn to drive doesn’t mean we’ll stop riding together. We only have the one van, after all, and there’s no way we can afford another vehicle. Just maybe sometimes you’ll be the one driving instead of me, that’s all."

There was a long silence.

"Oh," Ryuu said. "That doesn’t sound so bad."

"Right? Let’s go, then. It’s time to drive." Saeko slapped his side and stood, laughing brightly when he yelped. 

Ryuu jumped to his feet, now so excited that he actually got out the door before she did, despite her having a head start. Saeko chuckled as she followed her brother to the van.

The chuckle faded, though, replaced with an ache in her chest. Ryuu had been wrong to fear this particular learning experience, but he wasn’t completely off-base. He was growing up. Things were changing. Neither of them could stop it. In two or three years, maybe they wouldn’t even be able to spend as much time together as they did now, as little as that was.

She shook her head and quickened her step to catch up with him. Time enough to worry about that later. For now, they had this, and that would have to do.


End file.
